Hi keebo, thanks for posting those files, that helps me understand what you want.

But currently MoI is not really optimized for the kind of procedure that you want to do.

Please keep in mind that MoI is currently at release number 1.0 - the focus for the initial release has been much more for simple shapes and your many-sectioned snaking big organic rock is a really complex shape and not something simple.

Right now for control point tweaking you would have to do the painstaking method of edit the control points in an axis-aligned view, and then rotate the result into place.

Scaling is something that you can do directly in place though - you can do that with the regular Transform/Scale command, the trick is to pick the origin point of the scale in the same plane. To do that, you can create a construction line that spans from one side of your shape to the other - you do that by moving your mouse to one side where you want to start the line, then press and hold down the mouse button (instead of the regular press and release click type action that places a point), that will drag out a construction line. Then keep dragging until you reach the opposite side of the shape and release the mouse button over there. That will give you a kind of "chord" line going through the middle of the shape which is on that same plane, and you can snap on to a point somewhere near the middle of that chord as the origin point for the scale. Please let me know if you need more details on how this part works.

The first beta release of MoI version 2 will have a new editing frame which makes the scaling in this case a lot easier, there are some handles that appear around the outside of your planar object and you can just grab one and drag it to scale.


I do definitely plan on making it possible to set the construction plane to different orientations, so in a future release it should be a lot easier for what you are doing here.

- Michael

Hi keebo, another thing I forgot to mention is that I'm actually currently working on a related thing for the first v2 beta which is snapping points directly on to surfaces.

This should help solve the problem even before being able to set the regular construction plane, because you will be able to create a rectangular plane object going through that curve, and then when you drag its control points they will be able to snap on to the plane surface.

I'm still in the process of working on this right now but I do expect to have this for the first v2 beta in not too long.

- Michael

Thanks Michael,
I've started using the construction lines, but in a slightly different way:
Once the oval is rotated, I extrude it to an arbitrary distance. i then use the separate tool to dissect the extrude and erase everything except for the original oval and the end of the extrusion. Then I use a construction line that passes through the center of both objects. This construction line essentially acts as a local Z axis to the plane of my oval. Then I copy and move the copy of the original oval up the construction line to a desired space. I erase what's left over from the extrusion and then I can work on my new copy by scaling and rotating it to how I would like the form to flow. it is still really difficult to manipulate the form in any other way, but I can assure you I am loving the program so far and look forward to how this develops. As I said before, I haven;t really come across any program where shaping conceptual graphics is really quick and easy. SO when I downloaded this program a few nights ago and already have an organic structure that I can place into sketchup is just brilliant. Just to let you know, I am studying landscape architecture and since we are more concerned about landscapes and nature we want our structures to be more organic and not confined to architectural lines....like sketchup, AutoCad, Microstation and the billion other programs that depend on straight lines and exact geometry. Also, we (I mainly) are interested in pushing sculpture qualities in the built environment whereas architecture is much more confined. It has been refreshing trying out your program and I feel much less confined by the program's features than other CAD programs whose intentions are so architectural and not sculptural (explorative), so keep up the good work!

Hi keebo, I'm glad that you are enjoying using it - definitely some of the stuff coming for version 2.0 will help out for the stuff that you are doing as well.

If you're using a lot of construction lines, you may be interested in the scripts that you can get here: http://kyticka.webzdarma.cz/3d/moi/#KeepCLine - those are some scripts that you can attach to a keyboard shortcut which make it possible to pin down the construction lines that you create so that they stay around for longer than just the current command. That may be useful for now.

- Michael

thanks michael this will be helpful
cheers

Hi Michael,

A user Cplane would certainly be good and very helpful.

I know you have your direction, but wondering (really just thinking aloud) due to what I do sometimes. Let me try to explain.

Normally for a user Cplane (in MoI) I will simply create a square curve with inscribed circle, I then rotate that to the Cplane I want, from that I have many options already built in to MoI. Other times, if I have a need to make more(a lot of) construction on such a user Cplane, then I will rotate all the model to one of the default Cplane. This does work for me, I am wondering if any sort of script could be put in place to manage that (I dont think so in V1,.. but possibly in v2?). To be able to rotate all from say a tri selection on a non-planer selection to revolve to base Cplane?

- manz

Hi Steve, I definitely want to add a set of new "Orientation" transform commands. They would be focused on doing movement + rotation of objects to align them with other objects in a few different ways, I think they should cover the type of plane remapping that you are talking about here.

- Michael

Hi Keebo,

You might also consider using other tools besides lofting to gain greater control over an organic shape without the need of movable construction planes. When you see my example you'll see I didn't use a lot of planning or forethought, but I took a couple of your closed curves and added some squiggly side curves, doing a network surface to get a fairly natural looking organic shape. Then having read that you wanted to extend a structure that flows into a blossom, I added another section of curves using a circle with edited control points as a profile. I used blended curves to create a connection to the main body, using a network to make the stem, but having spent only 5 minutes or so messing around with this model, it's not a good transition. Getting a bit impatient, I finished it up by doing a two rail sweep towards the top. Maybe it would of been better to do it as a continuous network surface...but it any event, writing this explanation took longer than to make the model..:-) I just wanted to present some other construction methods. Hope it helps.

-Jesse

edit: The cool thing about MoI is that with "history" on the construction tools, you can move the control points of any curve after the surface is generated to easily change surface shapes.